That’s a topic Dr. Joe Outlaw at Texas A&M tackled via a Southern Ag Today item (link). The assessment primarily revolves around the period from 1985 to 2021. The observed increase in Payment Yields during the timeframe appears quite significant for specific crops — corn experienced a growth of 35.2%, rice displayed an increase of 26.6% and wheat rose by 19.7%. Products like seed cotton, soybeans and peanuts were introduced as standard program commodities only after 1985, hence their comparison yield data to 1985 is not available.
On the actual yields front, the growth has been substantial too, especially for corn, soybeans, upland cotton (which replaces seed cotton in this analysis), rice and peanuts, in the period from 1985 to 2021.
Bottom line: Outlaw notes this data highlights that farmers, at a national level, have successfully used yield updating opportunities to enhance payment yields for crops such as corn, wheat and rice. In contrast, grain sorghum’s actual and payment yields have remained relatively unchanged during the observed period.
